Colourful butterflies spread charm to the crowd on campus

Butterflies are one of the most beautiful creatures of nature. The tiny creature makes the world a little more colourful. Their vivid wing coloration and fluttering flight path lend a special touch of beauty to nature. Butterflies are the best choice to the nature lovers not only for its beauty but also for contributing a lot to balance eco-system. They help flowers pollinate, eat plenty of weedy plants and provide a food source for other animals. In addition, their presence or absence can tell us a lot about the local environment.
Jahangirnagar University (JU), the lone residential university campus of Bangladesh, is known as the kingdom of natural beauty for its mind-blowing natural decoration, greens, lakes, different species of birds and butterflies, and overall for its bio-diversities. The university campus is considered heaven for butterflies because of its natural abundance. The most picturesque views of fluttering flight of butterflies are common here.
Considering the multi-dimensional positive effects of butterflies on the environment and the natural abundance of butterflies on the campus, Zoology Department of the university has been organising the 'Butterfly Fair' to raise awareness to conserve butterfly in the environment every year since 2010.
In the continuity of the previous years, the 'Butterfly Fair-2018' was held with the slogan 'Urle akashe projapoti, prokriti pai natun gati' (If butterflies fly in the sky, nature gets new pace) on the campus on November 02. Zoology Department of the university in association with Prokriti o Jibon Foundation organised consequently for the ninth time the fair in a row. Around 50 species of vividly coloured butterflies were exhibited and a myriad of programmes were also introduced to raise awareness to conserve butterflies for balancing the environment as well as the beautification of the campus. The fair was inaugurated by the Vice-chancellor of the university Professor Farzana Islam.
The daylong mesmerised fair was featured with drawing competition for children, butterfly rally, photography exhibition, butterfly exhibition, butterfly-shape kite flying competition for children, butterfly race, debate competition and documentary exhibition on 'Butterfly and its habitat'.
Thousands of nature lovers accrued on the campus to see the mesmerising butterfly fair. Forruq Ahmed, a master's student of a private university, came here along with his friends to witness the collection of butterflies. 'I have never seen many of the butterflies which are displayed here. The stunning collection made my day,' he said blissfully.
Over 1,500 of around 50 species including Ape Fly, Plain Tiger, Common Crow, Common Grass Yellow, Monkey Puzzle, Blue Pansy and Painted Lady, delicately-pink Acacia Blue, the unique Tailed Jay, the faded White Quaker, and the intricately-patterned Monkey Puzzle, were exhibited at the fair in this year.
Although having the charming beauty of butterflies, the species of it are decreasing on the campus according to the statistics of the previous nine years. 'It is a matter of deep concern that though 125 species of butterflies were displayed in 2010 at the maiden Butterfly Fair but the number of species has decreased to only 50 over time. Every year we are losing some new species,' expressing distress the convener of Butterfly Fair and also the chairman of Zoology Department Professor Md Monwar Hossain was telling about the alarming mutation of the environment as the consequences of globalisation.
"Common Rose, Pioneer, Crimson Rose, Mottle Immigrant, Common Immigrant--these species have been extinct from our campus as a result of climate change. Since butterflies are known as environmental barometer. They will be available there where they will get a good sanctuary for good breeding place and habitat. The campus areas are getting developed rapidly and people are destroying the living places of butterflies indiscriminately. So, butterflies are either migrating to another place or they are getting extinct," Monwar was explaining.
All the displayed butterflies at the fair are also available in the butterfly research centre which was established in 2015 at the Botanical Garden on the campus. The research centre was established by Professor Md Monwar Hossain after imparting research on butterflies for the last 20 years in association with Zoology Department for further discoveries about the butterflies. Moreover, he vowed to declare some areas of the campus as the sanctuary of butterflies to make the campus butterfly friendly and to take a skim of extending the research territory.
'Butterflies process images and colours in a far better way than humans and since the method of colour vision and image processing is a field where scientists still don't have all the answers yet, butterflies are the perfect models to study,' noted the professor.
Every year the authority of Butterfly Fair provides the award to two distinct people or organisation for working on butterflies and environment. This year, 'Young butterfly enthusiast' award was given to Fahmina Sarker Borsha of Zoology Department of the university and butterfly award was given to Jibon O Bikas Karjocrom, a non-profit organisation, for contributions to research on the butterfly and working for the conservation of nature.
'We can prepare a list of endangered species of butterflies, conduct research on their habitat, and declare a sanctuary for them to save them because we need butterflies for ourselves. If they get extinct, we have to be extinct too today or tomorrow,' the young butterfly researcher Fahmina Sarker Borsha said.

The writer is a student of Department of Chemistry, Jahangirnagar University,
he can be reached at [email protected]